Over the summit of Mont Ventoux, it is pandemonium. There are too many people for too-little space, on a narrow road that loops up past the radio tower before plunging down the other side. The summer sun glares off the rock; everyone seems a bit stunned about the location, and the daylight, and the finish to the stage, which saw Valentin Paret-Peintre take the stage win from Ben Healy just before the inevitable force that is Tadej Pogačar swept through to set a climb record and gain another couple of seconds on Jonas Vingegaard.
Weaving through a thicket of camera crews and journalists and soigneurs and other riders, Pogačar rolls to a stop a few seconds later. His imposing Basque soigneur is first by his side, but once he’s got his cherry juice, Pogačar is interested in one person only. Quietly waiting off to the side of the road in AG Insurance-Soudal kit, helmet still on after riding up the back side of Ventoux, is Urška Žigart, Pogačar’s fiancée.
The two embrace, nestling their heads in alongside each other as Pogačar’s breathing begins to slow. For 30 seconds, maybe, they talk earnestly to each other – a little oasis of calm amongst the chaos of one of cycling’s most hectic summit finishes. Another hug and a quick kiss or two, and Pogačar is whisked away, back uphill to across from the finishing line, where the podium and TV production zone is.
Riders keep rolling in, among them teammates of Pogačar’s. But after Žigart and Pogačar were briefly the focal point of the race’s media, now she stands alone again, off to the side and next to an ASO Skoda. In that moment, it struck me that – although a talented athlete in her own right – she is, maybe, often seen as one half of an entity: the and alongside one of the sport’s greatest of all time. But I also wanted to try to understand her a little better, both as part of that pairing and as an individual. So I asked if I could talk to her for a few minutes.
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